BUSINESS
I HAVE BEEN a business editor for Texas Monthly and Texas Business Magazine and a senior writer (in Washington) for Investor’s Business Daily. At those and other publications, I’ve covered the macroeconomy and profiled many companies and executives.
Why are these Southwest Airlines flight attendants, pictured in 1971, making that gesture? Find out in this Texas Monthly story about the wild ride the airline took during its first months in business in 1971. I’ve written a lot about Southwest Airlines over the years for both podcasts and print.
Here is one story that came from my many interviews with Southwest’s legendary leader, Herb Kelleher. Here is a piece on Southwest often overlooked founder, Rollin King. And here I am talking about a scripted podcast I wrote for Wondery on Southwest and Kelleher.
Also for Texas MonthlyI wrote about an upstart, Dallas-based airline that’s doing battle with the incumbent carriers, including Southwest.
When Jo Hopper’s husband died suddenly an $8 billion battle began with the bank that held her family’s assets.
As the economy slowly recovered from the pandemic, I wrote about five investments your financial adviser would definitely not recommend.
Do not be like Don Draper. Do find a constructive way to vent your workplace anger. Consider buying some 3D real estate and brain powered toys.
Rodney Brooks is the father of modern robotics and the brains behind the Roomba. Now, with a tablet-faced, two-armed robot called Baxter, he has set out to redefine the role robots play in the American workplace. I told Brooks’ story in the November 2014 issue of Boston Magazine.
Is Bill Dean an engineering dork, a business whiz, or a playboy? Sub-question: Is he all three? For this story in Washingtonian, I met a man who runs a $700-million electrical engineering firm and throws some of the raciest parties in Washington.
Bill Paley brought back the cigars that helped his father found CBS. What would his famous parents (recently depicted in FX’s Fued: Capote vs. The Swans) think about him now?
I covered J.C. Penney during a stormy decade for the company.
The CEO of the Container Store tried to sell me some stuff.
Ray Washburne (the tall guy above) owns the most expensive piece of retail real estate in Texas and sometimes has influential politicians, like, say, George W. Bush, over to his house. After this story ran, he was named the Republican National Committee’s finance chairman and later became part of the Trump Administration.
Sidney Frank (the guy with the cigar to the right) founded Grey Goose and became a billionaire. Also, he liked roasted peppers. A lot.